Paul Kolker “Origins… Helen’s Dots”

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Paul Kolker presents Origins… Helen’s Dots at the PAUL KOLKER collection. This solo exhibition of paintings, prints and sculpture, Kolker’s sixty-second, revisits the origins of the artist’s fascination with dots, circles and spheres while continuing to research the psychology of perception using his works as experimental materials.

As depicted above, Paul Kolker: origins… chirik, 2018 is Kolker’s transformation of a painting, Jacob’s Ladder, by Luca Giordano, circa 1680. Kolker fractionates a photograph of the painting into an anachromic grayscale gradient, which is digitally layered to paint one over the other. The layer closest to the viewer is Kolker’s e dot grid; painted blue. The dot comports with the Hebrew vowel chirik, a solitary dot placed beneath a consonant which is vocalized in an ‘ee’ sound. The dot overlay serves as fixation points focusing the viewer’s attention. It memorializes the influence of Cousin Helen’s dots on Kolker, himself and his contemporary digital extrapolations in his art production and exhibition. It also serves as a veil which partially obscures the figural aspects of the painting; making the viewer part of an experiment in indirect perception. The origin of the painting is Genesis’ Jacob’s Dream of the Ladder at Beit El and subject to the viewers’ perceptions, beliefs and interpretations; especially now that the US is moving it’s embassy to Jerusalem.